For the longest time, when I read Matthew 12:33, I felt guilty. “Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit.” I asked myself if I was good enough. Was I working hard enough to produce good fruit? Was I at least trying hard enough?
As I have grown in knowledge of the Grace of God, a simple revelation has made a huge impact on me. A fruit tree doesn’t try to produce fruit: it simply does what God created it to do.
We have a walnut tree next to our house. Its branches stretch out over the corner of the roof directly above our bedroom. This tree has produced walnuts every year we have lived in this home. This time of year, I can be in our bedroom and hear one of the walnuts fall from this tall tree, land on the roof, and roll to the ground. The squirrels love this tree because it feeds them. Our dogs love to pick the nuts and run allover the yard like they got new toys.
When the walnuts fall to the ground and somehow don’t get carried away by the tiny squirrels or played with by the giant great danes, they produce more walnut trees. As the grounds keeper for the Turner Estate, I have had to uproot many walnut tree seedlings.
In the five years we have lived in this house, I have seen this tree grow, produce fruit, produce after it’s kind, and even change to a fun yellow color in the fall. I have witnessed evidence after evidence which point to one conclusion: this is a walnut tree. I have never witnessed this tree struggle to prove it is a walnut tree. I have worked around it and sat quietly under its shady branches. I have never heard this tree GRUNT. It stands there, tall, while it gives its shade and its fruit to all who come by.
In Christ, we are made new. We are given a DNA transfusion. We become Sons and Daughters of the King of Kings. “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10 read all of chapter 2, trust me) We are made “unto good works.” We should “walk in them.” There is nothing here about striving and struggling. The new nature is just that, the natural way in which a Spiritual person (created in Christ) lives.
Just like our walnut tree, producing good fruit is not a struggle to a good tree. Remember, as a believer, you are a good tree capable of producing good fruit. As our walnut tree receives sunlight, rain, and nutrients from the soil: it grows, produces more walnuts, and gives us shade year after year. Stop the struggle and let God’s nature bear fruit in your life. Be a fruit-bearing tree. Don’t be a Grunting Tree.
DAN TURNER JR. 